This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5099
November 1, 2011
November 1, 2011 - San Francisco CA - PipeLineNews.org - In what appears to be a classic "twofer," president Obama has just appointed professor Azizah al-Hibri - an anti-capitalist Islamist - to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. This move is reflective of Obama's ideological indictment of America, that it is a corrupt nation because of capitalism/colonialism and that it is inherently Islamophobic.
Al-Hibri's Islamism is no secret, she has appeared at innumerable forums as an apologist, spinning fairy-tale versions of Islamic history and the Qur'an. Take for example her claim, "there was no reason at all to think that Quaran [sic] gives women a subordinate place in society..." which was made during an interview with Bill Moyers [see, http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_alhibri.html] a statement which flies in the face of Islamic jurisprudence.
She has a practice of quoting [Meccan] passages from the Qur'an which play into the narrative that Islam is a peaceful religion while never explaining that the Qur'an's later combative Suras [chapters] and ayat [verses] "revealed" after Mohammed's Hijra to Medina take theological precedence through the universally recognized Islamic principle of abrogation. As a result, her stock in trade appears to be propagandizing to unsophisticated Western audiences who thrive on multiculturalism and know little about Islam.
Al-Hibri expressed support for a fundamentalist approach to reclaiming Islam, a mainstay tenet in modern extreme Islamic literature perhaps best summarized by Sayyid Qutb in his revolutionary Islamist tract, Milestones - required reading by al-Qaeda types. In a 2001 New York Times piece she said, "....For this reason, many of them are ill-equipped for the challenge of interpreting an ancient religion for a modern society. "When you change cultures and technological eras," Professor al-Hibri said, "you're going to need to go back to the fundamentals. And if you don't have the tools to go back to the fundamentals, you're in trouble." [source, William Glabersom, Interpreting Islamic Law for American Muslims http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/us/interpreting-islamic-law-for-american-muslims.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm
Al Hibri clearly believes in Islamic supremacy and superiority. In a 2007 article published in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's, Arab News [see, Maha Akeel, Raising Awareness of Islamic Fiqh in the US, Arab News, 25 May 2007, http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=9§ion=0&article=96600&d=25&m=5&y=2007] she stated, "...I think that Islamic fiqh is deeper and better than Western codes of law..."
Her strong support of Shari'ah, especially its seminal prohibition against insulting Islam and/or its Prophet is clear, as is her intolerance, "It was inexcusable even in the 17th century to have someone like Humphrey Prideaux speak disrespectfully of the Prophet; it is even less excusable that Americans today who have lived all their lives with our constitutional liberties condemn the religious beliefs of their co-citizens in similarly offensive terms..." [see, Azizah al-Hibri, Rev. Franklin Graham: Of Condemnation and Divinity, The American Muslim, http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/rev_franklin_graham_of_condemnation_and_divinity]
Al-Hibri also has displayed a rather conspiratorial view of the source of Islamophobia; that it is based upon colonialism [which, so goes the theory, is a fruit of capitalism] "A lot of Muslims in the United States have come from a very rich diversity of culture and civilizations. Unfortunately, because of a long and complicated history, which includes the actions of colonialist powers that banned the language of the Quran from schools and closed down Islamic schools, a lot of these people don't even know their own religion, said al-Hibri...." [source, Azizah Al-hibri explores What it means to be an American Muslim?, American Muslim Perspective, http://www.ghazali.net/archives2005/html/aziza_al_hibri.html]
It's difficult to parse the implication of what al-Hibri means by "inexcusable," but given the totality of her devotion to fundamentalism, its use is troubling.
Ms. al-Hibri makes no qualms about being a dogmatic anti-capitalist, of a rather revolutionary bent. Below, from a collection of essays entitled, Women and Revolution [1981, South End Press, ed. Lydia Sargent] Ms. al-Hibri states in "Capitalism Is An Advanced Stage Of Patriarchy: But Marxism Is Not Feminism."
"In my essay I shall aim at the root of the relationship between patriarch ad capitalism and show that conceptually, capitalism is an advanced stage of patriarchy...An impressive amount of evidence is available in support of this claim: capitalism is an advanced stage of patriarchy...Strategically, then, the struggle against capitalism, racism, imperialism and other products of man's basic attempt at domination of the Other must be based on an understanding of their basic patriarchal nature, and must therefore be regarded as part and parcel of the feminist struggle. This understanding provides a firm and clear basis for supporting socialist, nationalist and other liberation movements around the world despite their frequent antifeminist practices..."[source, Women and Revolution, pg. 161-195, http://books.google.com/books?id=Lk3WRvA7_B8C&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=Azizah+al-Hibri+Capitalism+is+an+advanced+stage+of+Patriarch:+but+marxism+is+not&source=bl&ots=PxmgDw7Nke&sig=XSZMbmZn9OjUvpCUztu3M2ojYFs&hl=en&ei=MzGwTrWKHcbciQL8wJHgDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false]
Unfortunately, this is the type of duplicity we have come to expect from this administration, using every opportunity to advance Obama's world view, with the appointment of Ms. al-Hibri being only the most recent example.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=hibri1112011101%2Ehtm
©2011 PipeLineNews.org LLC. Beila Rabinowitz contributed
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5099